Yemen Withdraws Permission for U.S. Antiterror Ground Missions

February 10, 2017

New York Times

WASHINGTON — Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Trump, Yemen
has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special
Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups in the
country, according to American officials.

Grisly
photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a
50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of
the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also
killed in the operation.

While
the White House continues to insist that the attack was a “success” — a
characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando
operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to
take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.

It
also calls into question whether the Pentagon will receive permission
from the president for far more autonomy in selecting and executing its
counterterrorism missions in Yemen, which it sought, unsuccessfully,
from President Barack Obama in the last months of his term.

Continue reading the main storyMr.
Obama deferred the decision to Mr. Trump, who appeared inclined to
grant it: His approval of the Jan. 29 raid came over a dinner four
nights earlier with his top national security aides, rather than in the
kind of rigorous review in the Situation Room that became fairly routine
under President George W. Bush and Mr. Obama.

The
raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of
Mr. Trump’s national security decision-making — and his willingness to
rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even
though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted,
and had the requisite legal approvals.

Mr.
Trump will soon have to make a decision about the more general request
by the Pentagon to allow more of such operations in Yemen without
detailed, and often time-consuming, White House review. It is unclear
whether Mr. Trump will allow that, or how the series of mishaps that
marked his first approval of such an operation may have altered his
thinking about the human and political risks of similar operations.

The
Pentagon has said that the main objective of the raid was to recover
laptop computers, cellphones and other information that could help fill
gaps in its understanding of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose
leaders have tried to carry out at least three attacks on the United
States. But it is unclear whether the information the commandos
recovered will prove valuable.

The White House continued its defense of the raid on Tuesday, making no reference to the Yemeni reaction.

Sean
Spicer, the White House press secretary, denied reports that the
purpose of the attack was to capture or kill any specific Qaeda leader.
“The raid that was conducted in Yemen was an intelligence-gathering
raid,” he said. “That’s what it was. It was highly successful. It
achieved the purpose it was going to get, save the loss of life that we
suffered and the injuries that occurred.”

Neither
the White House nor the Yemenis have publicly announced the suspension.
Pentagon spokesmen declined to comment, but other military and civilian
officials confirmed that Yemen’s reaction had been strong.

It
was unclear if Yemen’s decision to halt the ground attacks was also
influenced by Mr. Trump’s inclusion of the country on his list of
nations from which he wants to temporarily suspend all immigration, an
executive order that is now being challenged in the federal courts.

According to American civilian and military officials, the Yemeni ban on operations does not extend to military drone attacks,
and does not affect the handful of American military advisers who are
providing intelligence support to the Yemenis and forces from the United
Arab Emirates.

In
2014, Yemen’s government temporarily halted those drones from flying
because of botched operations that also killed civilians. But later they
quietly resumed, and in recent years they have been increasing in
frequency, a sign of the fact that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or
AQAP, is considered one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.

The
raid stirred immediate outrage among Yemeni government officials, some
of whom accused the Trump administration of not fully consulting with
them before the mission. Within 24 hours of the assault on a cluster of
houses in a tiny village in mountainous central Yemen, the country’s
foreign minister, Abdul Malik Al Mekhlafi, condemned the raid in a post
on his official Twitter account as “extrajudicial killings.”

In
an interview with Al Jazeera this week, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, Yemen’s
ambassador to the United States, said that President Abdu Rabbu Mansour
Hadi raised concerns about the raid in a meeting with the American
ambassador to Yemen in Riyadh on Feb. 2.

“Yemen’s government is a key partner in the war against terrorism,” Mr. Mubarak said in
the interview, adding that Yemen’s cooperation should not come “at the
expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country’s sovereignty.”

The
Pentagon has acknowledged that the raid killed several civilians,
including children, and is investigating. The dead include, by the
account of relatives, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the
American-born Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in
2011.

In
a sign of the contentiousness that public disclosures of the raid have
caused, Pentagon officials on Tuesday provided lawmakers on Capitol Hill
with a classified briefing on the mission. One participant in that
meeting said military officials told them “they got what they wanted,”
without offering details. But Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman
of the Armed Services Committee, said afterward that the raid was a
failure.

American
counterterrorism officials have expressed growing fears about their
lack of understanding of Qaeda operations in Yemen since the United
States was forced to withdraw the last 125 Special Operations advisers
from the country in March 2015 after Houthi rebels ousted the government
of President Hadi, the Americans’ main counterterrorism partner.

The Pentagon has tried to start rebuilding its counterterrorism operations in Yemen since then. Last May, American Special Operations forces helped Yemeni and Emirati troops evict Qaeda fighters from the port city of Al Mukalla.

Al
Qaeda had used Al Mukalla as a base as the militants stormed through
southern Yemen, capitalizing on the power vacuum caused by the country’s
14-month civil war and seizing territory, weapons and money.

The
deadly raid last month, launched from an amphibious assault ship off
the Yemeni coast, was the first known American-led ground mission in
Yemen since December 2014, when members of SEAL Team 6 stormed a village
in southern Yemen in an effort to free an American photojournalist held
hostage by Al Qaeda. But the raid ended with the kidnappers killing the
journalist and a South African held with him.

The
United States conducted 38 drone strikes in Yemen last year, up from 23
in 2014, and has already carried out five strikes so far this year,
according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal.

In
response to the raid, Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen urged followers last
weekend to attack the United States and its allies in the country.

Qasim
al-Raymi, the leader of the Qaeda offshoot, likened his fighters to
extremists battling American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, according
to a speech translated by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist activities and messaging.

Specialists
in Yemeni culture and politics have cautioned that Al Qaeda would seize
on the raid to whip up anti-American feelings and attract more
followers.

“The
use of U.S. soldiers, high civilian casualties and disregard for local
tribal and political dynamics,” the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group said in a report released last Thursday, “plays into AQAP’s
narrative of defending Muslims against the West and could increase
anti-U.S. sentiment and with it AQAP’s pool of recruits.”